President Stands by Herders while Speaker Zeroes in on Miners

President of Mongolia Battulga addressing the parliament (via Montsame)

President Khaltmaagiin Battulga has lashed out at the ruling Mongolian People’s Party for its role in driving a $1.7 billion budget deficit in 2020, blaming fiscal mismanagement and local negligence, particularly in Bayankhongor province. His remedy lies not in austerity, but in rural revival. He has called for subsidies to repopulate depopulated soums and floated a plan to build an industrial complex in Darkhan to process raw animal products into finished exports, anchoring the herder economy in value-added production.

While Battulga fixates on rural livelihoods, Parliament Speaker Gombojavyn Zandanshatar is advancing a more technocratic agenda. In his opening speech for the fall session, he outlined a dense legislative package aimed at reshaping Mongolia’s mining laws in line with Article 6 of the constitution, which declares the country’s natural wealth to be “state common property.” His aim, he said, is to make the people the true owners of the country’s mineral assets—at least in principle.

The legislative agenda is ambitious. It includes amendments to the Mineral Law, the State and Local Property Law, the Environment Protection Law, and new laws governing state-owned firms, common property, and a proposed National Wealth Fund. But what “people’s ownership” will mean in practice remains murky. Zandanshatar has yet to clarify whether strategic assets like Erdenet, Tavan Tolgoi, and Oyu Tolgoi will remain under direct state control or be partially opened to more decentralized oversight.

The political contrast is stark. Battulga, a populist with a combative history vis-à-vis the MPP, is tapping into rural discontent and positioning himself as a champion of neglected regions. Zandanshatar, more cautious and legalistic, is focused on long-term structural reform, particularly the governance of Mongolia’s mineral wealth. Both men are appealing to notions of ownership—land, wealth, identity—but from different ends of the political spectrum.

What neither has done is spell out how these ideas will be made to work. Battulga’s proposal for regional revival depends on administrative capacity and financing mechanisms that remain vague. Zandanshatar’s mineral reforms raise more questions than they answer: who, exactly, will benefit from the so-called public ownership, and how will those benefits be distributed?

The risk is that both agendas stay stuck at the level of rhetoric. Unless backed by credible implementation and institutional accountability, they could turn out to be more about posturing than policy.